01/10/2018 – Ephemeris – One lone, but invisible, bright planet in the evening, the rest in the morning

Ephemeris for Wednesday, January 10th. The Sun will rise at 8:18. It’ll be up for 9 hours and 3 minutes, setting at 5:22. The Moon, 2 days past last quarter, will rise at 3:20 tomorrow morning.

Let’s take our weekly look at the bright planets. While Uranus and Neptune are evening planets, they require binoculars or a telescope to spot. All of the bright naked eye planets save one are in the morning sky now, but Venus is too close to the Sun to be seen. So is Saturn, but that’s in the morning sky along with Mercury. At 7 this morning Jupiter is in the east-southeast and is a lot brighter than Mars, just below and left of it. Jupiter will rise at 3:29 tomorrow with Mars following at 3:40. If you want to take a crack at Mercury, it will rise this morning at 6:52 And Saturn will rise at 7:07 this morning. Saturn’s rise times will increase by 3 to 4 minutes each morning. The morning sky you’ll see at 7 a.m. will be the same stars as in the late spring sky with the summer triangle just rising.

The times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Morning planets with an animation of the Moon’s motion on the morning of the 10th & 11th. Created using Stellarium and GIMP. I’ll be covering the Moon’s apparent proximity to the planets tomorrow. Click on image to enlarge.

The fat waning crescent Moon as it might be seen in binoculars at 7 a.m. January 10, 2017. Created using Stellarium.

Jupiter with only two of its moons visible at 7 a.m. January 10, 2018. Io and Europa will be visible before 5:27 a.m. before ducking into Jupiter’s shadow. Created using Cartes du Ciel.

Satellite Event           Date      UT     EST
Europa Eclipse start:   10 Jan 2018 10:27  5:27 a.m.
Io Eclipse start:       10 Jan 2018 10:28  5:28 a.m.
Io Occultation end:     10 Jan 2018 13:42  Daylight
Europa Occultation end: 10 Jan 2018 14:56  Daylight

Satellite events are from the Pluto Project:  https://www.projectpluto.com/jevent.htm

Planets at sunset and sunrise of a single night starting with sunset on the right on January 10, 2017. The night ends on the left with sunrise on the 11th. Click on the image to enlarge. Created using my LookingUp program.